“I can fight,” Jack said, and he paused the game when Milo and Bobby laughed.

  “We’ve seen you fight, Jack,” Milo said with a smirk. “We know you can’t.”

  “Oh, it’s on.” Jack shut off the Xbox and tossed the controller in the chair with faux bravado and stood up. “You wanna fight, little man?”

  “Really?” Milo asked.

  Jack pretended to be enraged, but he could barely stifle his smile. “Yeah. It’s go time!”

  “Jack, you’re really no good at trash talk,” I said.

  “Come on.” Jack grinned at Milo. “Let’s do this.”

  “Okay.” Milo shrugged and got up.

  Jack bounced around on the balls of his feet and rolled his neck, like he thought he was Muhammad Ali. Milo smiled and went about pushing all the furniture to the side of the room so they’d be less likely to damage anything.

  “Bobby, you should probably move,” I suggested.

  He climbed up on the couch next to me. Jack and Milo both eyed each other up, grinning like fools, and neither of them really knew how to start a fight.

  “You ready?” Milo asked, suppressing laughter.

  “I was born ready!” Jack declared.

  Milo rushed Jack half-heartedly, but Jack responded with as much intensity as he could. He sidestepped Milo and tripped him, but Milo caught his balance before he even stumbled. He turned on Jack, swinging his leg around, so he knocked Jack’s feet out from under him.

  Jack fell to the floor with a bit of a bang, and he smiled up at Milo in surprise. Matilda barked and wagged her tail. I didn’t want her getting hurt in the fray, so I got up and let her out on the patio.

  On my way back, I heard a horrible crashing sound, and I ran to the living room. Jack lay sprawled out in a pile of a broken chair, with a picture frame shattered on the floor behind him. Milo stood on the other side of the room, looking rather proud of himself.

  “You guys! Mae’s gonna be —” I stopped myself before I finished the sentence. Mae didn’t live here. She wouldn’t be mad about anything we destroyed because she wouldn’t really be here.

  “Are you okay?” Bobby asked, his eyes wide.

  “Yeah. I’m fine,” Jack assured us with a laugh.

  Bobby gave Jack a hand, and even though he didn’t need it, Jack let him help him to his feet. Jack shook his head, dismayed by what had happened.

  “When did you get so strong?” he asked Milo, brushing debris from his tee shirt. “I used to be able to take you.”

  “We never play-fought that much,” Milo disagreed.

  “Well, I could at least hold you back.” Jack appraised Milo, as if seeing him in a different light. “Now I don’t think I could even do that. And you should still be pretty weak. You’re only a baby.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked. Jonathan had said almost the exact same thing to me the other day, and I didn’t fully understand it.

  “Milo’s only been a vampire for six months,” Jack explained. “He should be still getting his sea legs. Usually, the older you are, the stronger you are, but Milo slammed me like that.” He snapped his fingers to demonstrate.

  “You always said you’re a lover, not a fighter,” I said.

  Ezra came into the room and survey the mess a moment before asking, “What happened in here?” Fortunately, he sounded more perplexed than he did disappointed.

  “They did it,” Bobby answered quickly and pointed at Milo and Jack.

  “We were just playing around,” Milo told Ezra. “We’ll clean up the mess.”

  “I see.” Ezra nodded once, then his russet eyes landed on me. “Alice, may I speak to you for a moment?”

  “Uh, yeah. Sure. Of course.”

  Ezra turned and walked back to his den. I got up and hurriedly stepped over the rubble, and my mind raced to think of what I had done wrong. I had fallen a bit behind in the schoolwork Ezra assigned me, but I’d been really busy lately.

  Well, maybe not really busy. But Peter and Mae had thrown everything off, and I was still training and trying to find Jane’s killer, and I’d been hassled by those vampire hunters tonight. So, Ezra couldn’t blame me too much for being ten pages behind in a law textbook meant for college students.

  By the time I reached Ezra’s den, I’d thought of a million apologies and excuses I could give him.

  “So… you wanted to see me?” I asked, barely stepping inside.

  “Would you close the door behind you?” Ezra asked as he sat down at his chair behind his desk.

  “Uh… yeah.” I shut the door and swallowed hard.

  “I’m assuming you don’t want Jack to know you’re tracking that serial killer?” Ezra asked.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “No. Why?”

  “Well, I’ve been doing some digging around on your behalf,” Ezra said.

  “Really?” I hurried the few steps forward so I was right in front of his desk.

  “I found this.” He typed something on the keyboard in front of him, then turned the monitor around so I could see it.

  The screen showed a red mark on pale flesh, so swollen it was hard to decipher. I leaned in closer, squinting at it. It was shaped in a U, just like Violet had said. I could tell there were more details in the marking, even if I couldn’t make out what they were.

  “Is that a horseshoe?” I asked.

  “Not exactly.” He clicked the screen and a different picture appeared.

  This one was the same as the first, except it had been given more time to heal. The U had some kind of design on it, like a crosshatch pattern. The left side was thinner than the right, and the right had some kind of disfigured knob at the end.

  I tilted my head, hoping viewing it from a different angle would help. “Is it a serpent?”

  “It’s a dragon.” Ezra pointed to the screen, touching on the underbelly of the U. “The wings are tucked into the sides there. The design doesn’t hold up well when it’s been seared into flesh, but whatever made the brand was quite detailed.”

  The crosshatch pattern I had noticed were scales, and the disfigured knob was the head.

  “This is the brand?” I leaned in even closer.

  “Yes. This one here —” he nodded to the second picture that was displayed, “— is a picture taken from a girl that was picked up downtown for prostitution.”

  “The police know about verkurvas?” I stood up straighter and walked around the desk, so I could sit on the edge of it next to Ezra, and he leaned back in his chair.

  “Most of them, no,” he said. “She was picked up for the old-fashioned kind of prostitution, but she’s definitely a verkurva.”

  “Did she say anything about the guy who branded her?” I asked.

  “Not that I could find out, but I doubt she said anything. Verkurvas are trapped in a fog of addiction that makes them loyal to a fault.” He exhaled deeply and stared at the screen. “The first picture I showed you, that was from a body of one of the slain girls.”

  “Jane?” I whispered, a lump swelling in my throat.

  “No. I wouldn’t show you that, not without warning you.” His dark eyes met mine, and I nodded my gratitude.

  “But this is good, right?” I pushed any sadness I had about Jane out of my mind. “This is the link I wanted. Whoever is branding the girls is the killer.”

  “It seems that way,” Ezra agreed. “The reason the mark is so hard to see on the dead body is because it is fresh. The killer did it right before they died, so they didn’t have a chance to heal.”

  “The killer is a vampire, isn’t it?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I believe so. For one thing, all the victims had scar tissue from repeated bites.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “I saw a copy of the autopsy reports from a contact in the police force,” Ezra said offhandedly, and he leaned forward. “But the big clue is this symbol.”

  “The dragon?”

  He tapped the symbol on the screen. “This is an ancient symbol for Dracula. ‘Dracul’ means dragon.”

  “Wait. You’re saying Dracula killed Jane?” I asked skeptically.

  “I am almost certain that is not the case,” Ezra said. “The significance is that whoever marked these girls did so using the symbol of a vampire. They want everyone to know a vampire did this.”

  “Is that how they died, then? By vampire bite, I mean?”

  “No. They were all stabbed,” he said.

  “Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to kill like a vampire, since that seems like the whole deal?” I asked.

  “One would think so, at first. Draining someone of all their blood, the way a vampire kills when they feed, would leave a clean, bloodless death.” He looked back at me. “If the killer wanted to make an impact, they want something gory and vibrant.

  My mind flashed back to the crime scene photo I’d seen in the newspaper. All the blood staining the sidewalk from Jane’s body, and my stomach twisted.

  “Why?” I stared down at the rug on the floor and swallowed. “Why would he want to do that? Why would anybody want to do that?”

  “I honestly have no idea.” Ezra watched me, and he put his hand gently on my leg. “Are you all right? I didn’t tell you this to upset you. Maybe I —”

  “No, thank you.” I shook my head and smiled wanly at him. “I needed to know. I’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t know if I should’ve told you any of this,” he said, and the pressure from his hand on my leg intensified. “You can’t go after the killer alone, do you understand me?”

  “Yeah, of course not,” I said. In the back of my mind I wondered if Ezra would count Bobby as back up.

  “Search all you want, but if you get close, call me.” His dark eyes never left mine, and the severe expression on his face made me too nervous to do anything but nod. “You cannot handle this on your own. This is a vampire without a conscience, and we have no idea what their motivations are. That makes them a very dangerous adversary.”

  I nodded again. “I understand.”

  When he looked away and his hand loosened on my leg, I let out a deep breath. He leaned back in his chair, and he swiveled slow from side to side. I realized I hadn’t talked to him that much lately.

  “How are you holding up with everything?” I asked him.

  “I’ve been through worse.” He smiled crookedly, but it didn’t hide the pain in his eyes. He must’ve known that because he turned and faced the monitor.

  “Have you talked to her since the first night she got here?” I asked, and Ezra shook his head. “Why not?”

  “Alice, you know why not,” he said quietly. “I didn’t have anything to say to her while she was gone, and I don’t have anything to say to her now.”

  “She’s your wife, Ezra.”

  “I am fully aware of who she is.” His words were clipped. Then his shoulders slacked a bit, and his expression softened. “I wasn’t lying, Alice. I have been through worse, and I’ll make it through this. I appreciate your concern, though.”

  Ezra had gone back to staring at the computer screen, so the conversation seemed to be over. I thought of telling him about the vampire hunters we’d run into at the blood bank, but he didn’t need to worry about that now. The drawn look on his face let me know he already had too much on his mind.

  “Thank you,” I said, and I’d made it over to the door and opened it when he stopped me.

  “Alice, remember what I said. Don’t go this alone.”

  “I won’t.” I smiled, and even I wasn’t sure if I was lying.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jack stood in front of the full-length mirror, holding his tee shirt bunched up in his hands. With his back to the mirror, he kept twisting and turning, trying to get a good view of his backside. After watching him for a few seconds from the hallway, I went into our bedroom.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Something hurts.” He craned his neck around, stretching it so far it looked uncomfortable. “In my lower back. But I can’t see what.”

  “What do you mean something hurts?” I asked.

  Vampires felt pain, but it usually only lasted a few seconds, unless it was a major injury that would take longer to heal, or we’re really low on blood, which slows the healing time.

  “I don’t know. But it hurts.” He kept moving around, so I put my hand on his back.

  “Stop. Let me look.”

  When he finally quit moving, I saw it. In his lower back, just above the waistband of his pants, he had a large bump. A wooden splinter from the broken chair downstairs had gotten lodged in his smooth muscles, and it looked angled like it was digging in is spine. Only a bit of the end was sticking out, but I grabbed it with my fingers and yanked it out.

  “Ow!” Jack winced. I held the splinter up to him. It was about half an inch thick and three inches long. “That was in my back?” He inspected it for a minute, then set it down the dresser behind him.

  When he started pulling on his shirt, I stopped him. “Why are you getting dressed?”

  He tossed aside his shirt and grinned at me. “Why? What are we doing?”

  “Since you seemed in a wrestling mood tonight, I thought I’d see if you wanted to try your luck against me.”

  “Sorry. I can’t fight you,” he said with exaggerated sadness.

  “Cause you know I’ll win?”

  “I don’t hit girls.” He shrugged helplessly.

  “That’s probably a good policy.” I stepped towards him. “Too bad that won’t stop me.”

  I put my hands on his chest. He reached up to wrap his arms around me, but I pushed him back. Not hard, but he stumbled back and fell onto the bed. I climbed on top of him, straddling him between my legs, and he put one hand on my hips. My hair fell into my face, and using his other hand, he tucked it behind my ears.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said as he smiled up at me.

  “Missed me?”

  “Yeah, I feel like I haven’t seen you much lately. You’re gone all the time.” He tilted his head, his expression growing more serious. “What have you been doing, Alice?”

  I didn’t want to talk about this, not now. “Training a lot.” To silence anymore questions, I leaned down and kissed him. His lips felt hesitant on mine, and his skin remained cool.

  I stopped and looked down at him. “What?”

  “Are we okay?” Jack asked.

  “Why wouldn’t we be?”

  “I don’t know. I feel like we’ve been fighting a lot lately, and I don’t know where you go.” He swallowed. “Something just seems... off.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I reassured him. “I love you. I chose this life to spend eternity with you, and it’s only just begun. You can’t start questioning it already.”

  “No, I’m not questioning it.” His smile came more easily now. “And yeah. I know, and I love you, too.”

  He reached up, burying his fingers in my hair. This time, his kisses were as wonderful and fervent as they always were. Hot tingles spread over my skin, and my stomach fluttered.

  When he sat up, he kept his hand on the small of my back, holding me to him. Barely taking his lips from mine, he slipped off my shirt, pulling it over my head. With surprising dexterity, he unhooked my bra, and pressed my bare skin against his.

  His heart pounded hard and fast, echoing over my own. He flipped me on the bed, so I lay on my back, and somehow, he slipped my pants and panties off in the process. He struggled to undo his own, and my fingers worked quickly to help unfasten his button.

  He laughed, sending fresh tingles through me, and then his lips were all over me. Kissing my belly, my chest, my shoulders, my neck. I raised my chin, allowing him to bite me if he wanted.

  Jack hovered over me, his faded blue eyes meeting mine, and in a low voice, he said, “Not this time.” His smile had turned melancholy, and remorse came off him faintly, buried underneath his passion. “For once, I want to love you the way you were meant to be loved. Without all the… vampire stuff.”

  My brow furrowed in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know.” He laughed, but it had a strange hollow sound to it that broke my heart. He looked at a spot above me instead of meeting my gaze. “I turned you into a vampire without giving you a chance to learn what it really meant. And I said I did it to protect you, and I did, but maybe…”

  “I know you did it because you loved me and you wanted me with you always.”

  “Yeah.” He lowered his eyes and swallowed hard. “You regret it. I know you do, and… I did this to you.”

  “Jack, no,” I insisted. “I don’t regret this.”

  His arms were on either side of me, propping himself up, and I ran my hand over his chest, trying to comfort him.

  “You rushed into something you didn’t understand because it was what I wanted, and you can’t take it back.”

  “I don’t want to take it back,” I said.

  “Come on, Alice.” He shook his head. “That’s why we’ve been fighting so much. Everything we’ve been arguing about, it all boils down to the fact that you don’t didn’t want to change. You don’t want to be this thing that drinks blood. I made you into a monster.”

  “No, Jack! You did not! I’m not—” I stumbled, trying to think of what I meant. “We’re not monsters. Okay? You just gave me forever with you. I want to be with you.”

  “I know you do. That’s what makes this so much worse.” When he looked at me, he had tears swimming in his eyes.

  “I’ll never regret being with you,” I told him honestly.

  “And I’ll never stop regretting doing this to you.”

  Lying there naked, as close as two people could be, I had never felt such distance between us.

  The problem was that Jack maybe had a point. While I loved him and I did want to be with him for as long as I was alive, I didn’t know that I enjoyed being a vampire. I didn’t want to be a monster that hunted and hurt people, that lived an endless life without purpose, wandering the earth without ever contributing anything.

  But I didn’t blame him for that. I had made a choice, and even if I’d rushed into it, that had been my fault, not his.

  I couldn’t say anything to ease his guilt, so I leaned into him and kissed him again, this time hungrier and more intense. I wanted to make his pain go away, I wanted him to feel how much I loved him, how desperately I needed him, and how I never, ever wanted to live without him.

 

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